Drawings

Center On

Violence

Pages Taken From Boy

Charged In Stabbing

The doodlings of a boy charged with slashing and stabbing a classmate during computer class reveal a fascination with comic-book style violence and a resolution to kill unpopular classmates.

"I'm gonna kill some people at school that I don't like and other people probably don't like them either," reads one scrawl in notebook pages seized by police after the Feb. 7 arrest of Paul Van Schaik, 16.

Van Schaik, of Margate, is charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder in an attack on classmate Chris Hill at Coconut Creek High.

Hill, 16, was stabbed 17 times but has recovered and returned to school.

Witnesses said Van Schaik, a 10th-grader, attacked Hill with knives in both hands. He ran but was tackled by other students outside the school.

In his drawings, Van Schaik sketched a comic book character with flames or ribbons coming off his arms and legs - and wielding knives or swords in both hands.

In one drawing, the knife-wielding figure is either descending or ascending, drawn above two smaller figures in what appears to be a fenced-in, suburban back yard.

In another, the figure is crashing through a plate-glass window. In a third, he is holding a small child in one hand, his darkened sword in the other.

Chris Cotter, owner and manager of Tropic Comics in Plantation, said the character is not one he knows from comic books and appears to be drawn from Van Schaik's imagination.

In a hearing set for this morning before Broward Circuit Judge Barry E. Goldstein, Van Schaik's attorney, Chris Roberts, will formally announce his intent to have his client declared innocent by reason of insanity.

Roberts will also ask the judge to appoint psychologists to determine the teen-ager's competence to stand trial.

If the judge declares Van Schaik incompetent, he would be ordered into mental counseling and would not return to the court system until he is found well.

Van Schaik is an honor student. Relatives said he has an IQ of 130. After his arrest, he was sent to a hospital on the west coast of Florida for mental health counseling but was returned to the Broward County Jail on Thursday.

He has not talked to authorities since his arrest, Roberts said.

The stabbing victim, Hill, is referred to on one page of Van Schaik's notes, part of a list of five names followed by percentages.

A test paper has a note above it, apparently from a teacher, that reads, "It seems you are keen on guns and violence, should I and your parents be concerned?'' In the paper, Van Schaik had written, "An "A" student looks like a normal person except he's got this trusty gun that he uses to bribe the teachers."

Van Schaik's notes also indicate a twisted sense of humor.

At the end of a 1 1/2-page paper on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he writes: "If you're ever at a funeral and it's your turn to kiss the dead guy, give him a few rescue breaths. Hey, you might get lucky."